ELYRIA -- Wind power over Lake Erie could provide eco-friendly electricity and hundreds of new jobs for Lorain County, county Commissioner Ted Kalo said.

About 100 area government officials and business leaders gathered yesterday at Lorain County Community College to discuss how wind turbines placed in Lake Erie can bring work to Lorain County if northern Ohio becomes a hub for offshore wind power in the Great Lakes. A 2004 study found Ohio could gain more than 80,000 jobs in wind turbine manufacturing, with an estimated 1,600 new jobs possible for Lorain County, Kalo said.

"We have the opportunity to become leaders in this industry," Kalo said. He was joined by Richard T. Stuebi, fellow of energy and environmental advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, and Steven Dever, executive director of the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force.

Local governments, utility companies and businesses already are examining how they can use wind turbines to provide non-polluting electrical power.

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Right now, the United States has no offshore wind turbines creating electrical power, but European countries already have turbines in the North and Baltic seas. In the next decade, as the number of land-based turbines grows, the Great Lakes are poised to become the next location for building and installing turbines, the officials said.

Lake Erie already has winds averaging stronger than 18 mph, with fresh water, buildable depths and generally the least amount of ice among the five Great Lakes, Dever said. Northern Ohio already is wired to the national power grid and, compared to wind farms on the Great Plains or the West, sits closer to power customers along the eastern seaboard, Stuebi said.

The Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force hopes to have an offshore turbine project under construction by 2012, Dever said.

That project is planned off the coast of Cleveland, but the officials emphasized offshore wind potential is big enough that Ohio's shoreline counties must take a regional approach for the water-based turbines.

Lorain city and county already have assets that could be huge for offshore wind development, Stuebi said.

For example, compared to Cuyahoga County, the geography of Lorain County's shoreline allows wind turbines to be located closer to the shore, but still catch open-water winds, he said.

The RRI Energy Plant in Avon Lake could pipe wind turbine electricity onto the energy grid, available to industrial power users such as Ford's Ohio Assembly Plant that sit close to shore, he said.

"The offshore wind opportunity for manufacturing and shipping and economic development are actually slightly better in Lorain than Cuyahoga County," Stuebi said after the meeting. "Lorain's well-positioned."

Kalo said he wants that potential to become jobs for area residents working to build turbines and in support businesses. One 2004 study found Ohio could be second only to California in creating wind-power jobs, with the potential for 1,600 new jobs in Lorain County.

"The United States imports a lot of wind turbine components when we should be making them ourselves," Kalo said.

The officials noted the start-up costs will be the biggest hurdle to overcome in developing offshore wind power. Lorain County so far has not committed any money to the energy task force, but Kalo said local officials at least must start researching the issue or risk losing an industry to another state around the Great Lakes.

"We're trying to be part of the solution and start to stimulate a new economy, a new industry in northeast Ohio," Kalo said afterward. "By working cooperatively, we hope to accomplish that."